Day 17 of Anne’s Journey Back to Ukraine

We all slept in again. Lucy left to go do a few things. The rest of us got food from the balcony, our new refrigerator, to eat for breakfast. I again washed my hair in freezing cold water. The boys were packing up their stuff. I used words and sign language to make sure they knew we were sleeping here one more night. They understood. It is amazing how much we are able to communicate. While the boys were cleaning up their stuff, Heather was in cleaning up my stuff. She loves to put things in drawers and cupboards. We have many drawers and cupboards in this place. I sure hope I find all of my stuff when we pack up tomorrow. Jonathon and I worked on the two green spots on the chair for a while.

blogging and movie

The boys wanted to play the new Monopoly type game we bought on Saturday. We discovered why it only cost 28 grivna, we have to cut out a bunch of cards. I do not have scissors, so we will have to check with Lucy’s mom to get some. Lucy called the landlady again. She came over with a repair man. The cooktop actually does work. There is a trick to getting it lit and to stay on. I could have boiled water and had hot water! The lady and the repairman left to go get something to fix our water heater and refrigerator problem. They came back with three black extension cords that look a bit like our surge protection bars. They had multiple plug ins. They stretched these cords across from a working outlet in the hallway. The cord crossed the hallway, then the next one was plugged into it and stretched into the kitchen, the refrigerator was pulled out from the wall so that the cord could reach the extension cord, and the third extension cord stretched around the kitchen and over to the water heater. I hope the children will be careful with all these cords and plugs. The young landlady apologized for the inconvenience. I told her we were fine and thank you.

The boys watched Spiderman in Russian while we waited for all this to get taken care of. At 2:00, we finally left to go meet Lucy for lunch and a tour of the city. I took my adaptor and converter for Lucy to try out her new hair straightener. It is like a curling iron, but instead of curling the hair, it straightens the hair. I have never used one before. The children and I road the bus and got off at the same stop we got off for yesterday when we went to church. With the help of the children, we figured out how to wander of way through buildings and across another street to get to her apartment building. We felt quite pleased with ourselves. Lucy tried out the straightener as soon as we arrived. It did not work. I told Lucy that my curling iron does not work if it is the only thing plugged into my converter. I discovered this on our first trip. We have an adapter that is plugged into the wall, with a converter plugged into the adapter, and then a surper protection bar plugged into the converter. We then are able to plug multiple cords into the surge protection bar such as the DVD player, Camera recharger, Computer recharger, and my curling iron. If my curling iron is the only thing plugged into the plugs, it will not turn on, but if I plug just one other thing in to one of the other outlets on the surge bar, walah, the curling iron works. I do not know why that is. Lucy was disappointed about that and decided to put it directly into the adaptor and skip using the converter. It turned on . . . and then it started smoking. She quickly unplugged it. She then wondered if she reuined it, so she plugged it into only the adapter to see and the light went on and she quickly unplugged it. So for any of you adopting moms that are planning on bringing over a curling iron, you may need to remember this so that you don’t think your curling iron is broken. You can check with Renee or Kerry to see how their straighteners worked and if they had similar difficulties. I told Lucy that she should probably just buy one here that has the proper plug. She said it costs about 600 grivna to buy a straightener. That would be about $75.

While we were at Lucy’s place, her mom soaked and cooked some sunflower seeds for us to eat. The boys ate some and then loaded up their pockets with more so they could go play soccer. I insisted that Heather put on her thicker coat to go play. It was quite cold and wet. It reminds me of Washington. Everything is beautiful and green now. I love green!! When Lucy was ready to go, we headed out the door to go visit the old castle. We took a bus and walked a little ways to get there.

We had fun walking around inside the walls of the castle. There are three towers on the castle. Heather and the boys looked through one of the openings in the bricks that had a woven wrought iron type door on the front. After looking in, Heather jumped back as though something had scared her, so I went over to look in. It was an old prison cell and quite dark, but I too jump a bit as my eyes adjusted to the dark interior and I saw a man sitting on the floor just in front of me in the prison cell. He was fake, of course, but he startled me too. We noticed the time and realized we would really have to hurry in order to eat, buy refreshments for family home evening, and get home before Lucy’s parents and the missionaries arrived at our apartment.

Castle of Lubart in Lutsk

At the castle

That looks like a nice prison cellChess in the Castle

Chess in the Castle

Chess in the Castle

The restaurant we stopped out in town that was like the Pazata Hata type place we ate at last night, hardly had any food out, so we decided to go catch a bus to take us to the restaurant we ate at last night. We were glad we did. We all ate a big meal, hurried into the very large shopping market next door to buy some refreshments, and then out to catch the bus. We arrived at our bus stop around the time the missionaries should have been arriving, so the children and I headed up to the apartment while Lucy waited. It had been a VERY cold walk and we were all very glad to be home.

Elders Shurtleff and Hovorka arrived as did Lucy’s parents. They all were given a tour of our grand apartment by Lucy and the children. We then gathered for a lesson. The missionaries taught the children about some of the commandments. They talked about not lying, not stealing, not taking the name of the Lord in vain, and about loving one another. We had some very good discussion about each of these. Lucy’s parents were great to share their thoughts as were also the missionaries. Elder Hovorka shared a story about when he took some candy from a store. He mother discovered it and took him back to the store to return it and apologize. He then talked about how he also prayed to ask forgiveness. At the end, I shared with the children how sometimes it is too hard for us to stop doing something that we should not be doing (steeling, lying, smoking, drinking, overeating, etc.) but I know that if we pray to Heavenly Father with great sincerity that He will help us do whatever he has asked us to do. We then played a game called pass the pigs. It is a very weird game, but everyone sure had fun playing it. It was Lucy’s favorite game on the mission. Bryan and Ryan, did you play the game? Elder Shurtleff won the game. We finished the evening with refreshments (the same wafer type cake we had at the Nielsons’ home last week for FHE, juice, and some ground sunflower with sugar swirl thingy that is dried and a bit crumbly, but tastes good). Lucy’s mom brought some homemade pear jam that had no sugar added. I cut some bread and tried it. YUMMY!! I will have to try to make it at home. It was just the right amount of sweetness. Well, the evening came to a close and everyone, including Lucy, left me and the children.

Family Home Evening

Family Home Evening in Lutsk

The Elders

Elders Shurtleff and Hovorka

I worked with the children on writing some more English words and sentences in their notebooks. I also had them read to me from an English book. Tony called. He has talked with the children on the phone and asked them, “What are you doing?” They have no idea how to answer, so that is the next question I will work with them on. I will help them write some sentences that they will be able to answer him with.

Heather took a shower while the boys worked on their English. When it was their turn to shower, I discovered them in the bathroom filling up the big tub. Now that we have hot water, I guess they decided they better use it. They didn’t get too much water all over the place.

Anne working with Jonathon on his reading

Heather reading to Anne

We finished up with scriptures and prayer. Hyrum volunteered to pray again when Jonathon and Heather declined. I think Hyrum will be ready to start learning how to prayer in English. He is an eager learner and not shy.

The teacher!

I do get a little intense in my teaching. You can ask all my children.

Now who do you think is on the other side of this camera that is suppose to be working on his English?!

Comments

We had Pass the Pigs! I used to steal the pigs out of the game to add to my farm animal and Lion king toys to create a pig family in my animal kingdom when I was little.
Sounds like you’re doing your best to enjoy the time left in Ukraine!